Selfish
by laquila
Summary: Mrs. Lovett has the nerve to laugh at Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd reacts accordingly. Or not so accordingly, depending on how you look at it.


Selfish

What Mrs. Lovett didn't know was that Mr. Todd was well aware that she loved him. He seemed ever distracted and always fixated on that singular lust for revenge. But he had been a reasonable man once. And he was still a logical man, despite everything. And it was his logical and once reasoned mind that kept him aware of her longing for him.

He had always known, really, even before the nightmares had begun. But they had both been married and he had been happy. He wasn't aware if she had been happy, but he was in love and, frankly, didn't care if she was either way.

Being in love made one preposterously selfish.

He still didn't care, of course. But when she was happy, things were easier for him. Perhaps he was being selfish but he indulged her. In truth, he had indulged her every night since last Thursday.

She was laughing when she came up to him that first night. He could see her, shadows under her gleaming eyes, her exhausted limbs giving way into his chair as the fits of laughter took her, her chest rising and falling tremulously as she gasped for air. She had been working all day. Her life, he liked to believe, was as dreary as his. And yet here she was. Laughing. And he hated it. Her.

He wanted to slit her throat then, wanted to somehow make her stop. She was positively ruining his daily sulking. His fingers itched for his friends to do their work.

"Stop that." He spoke rather than acted. And his friends would not listen. The razor stayed sheathed. Mrs. Lovett, damn her, kept right on laughing.

"Stop that!" He lunged towards her as she wiped tears from her eyes. He snatched both of her hands in his, pulled them away from her face and shook her.

Her eyes gave way to fear so briefly that any other man would have missed it. But if Sweeney Todd knew one thing better than the art of a close shave, it was the look of fear.

She stopped laughing and he gifted her with a satisfied sneer. But she snatched her hands from his and leaned toward him in the chair.

"For heaven's sake, Mr. T! If you're going to kill me for laughing, I might as well give up now, 'cause Lord knows I won't last the night. 'Specially not with Toby downstairs tottlin' 'round drunk and trying to put pants on the cat."

"...Was...the cat cold?" He had said it before he could stop himself. He was still leaning over her - close enough to see her face strain with the effort not to laugh. But laugh she did. At him, no doubt. And this time his friend responded quite well indeed. The razor was at her throat before she could take another breath.

"Do not _tempt _me, Mrs. Lovett. I may not require your services for much longer." He was staring straight into her face this time - not like the last time - and what he saw there made him hate her even more. There was fear, yes, but there was also understanding. There was pity and undeniable affection. He couldn't stand to look at her one moment longer and still he did not kill her. Why? He threw his razor across the room. It hit his mirror with a strange crystalline sound before falling to the floor.

The hand that held her by the throat remained but the immediate threat was gone and so Mrs. Lovett took this opportunity to touch his cheek with the tips of her fingers.

"What's wrong, love? What do you need?"

His eyes met hers for a single moment and what she saw there was utter confusion. The hand on her throat tightened and for an instant, she thought that he would strangle her. That he had realized that there was a much less messy way to dispatch of those tainted souls undeserving of life. But then his hand stilled, became almost gentle. Then the palm of his hand smoothed over her collarbone. She sighed and allowed herself to close her eyes, leaning her head down toward his touch. If she was going to die, she could think of no better way to go.

She chanced a look at him. His eyes, too, were closed and his perpetually furrowed brow had almost softened, making him look like the man he had been. She never loved him more than looking at him in this way. Mrs. Lovett took a deep breath and made up her mind to take this chance with him.

"What do you need, Benjamin?" She repeated, stronger this time.

His eyes flashed at her with a purpose she had only seen when he had been speaking of the Judge. She knew then that she was certainly going to die. There was no way around it now. Using the name he had left behind along with his former life, his family, and his sanity was surely a fatal mistake. She felt his hand grasping the back of her neck again, drawing her closer to the steely face of her avenging angel. She thought of Toby, of poor Albert and his chair. Of her weary faced mother. She thought of dancing with Mr. T as they hatched their schemes. She thought of his face - open and oddly relieved when she told him she knew who he was. She wasn't ready for death, but she stole herself against it anyway.

She felt his kiss before she realized what it was. The sensation was so foreign to her. His lips were surprisingly gentle against her own. Hesitant. Almost fearful. But then he held her face with his other hand, drawing her closer still, deepening the kiss into something of want, of need, and desire.

Mrs. Lovett had no time to think and wouldn't have wanted to if she did. Her hands moved to the back of his neck and dug themselves into his wild hair. She arched herself up against him. His one arm wrapped around her waist and held her to him so that she was barely touching the chair.

And still he kissed her, even as she made a tiny wet gasping sound that reminded him of a dying final breath. One of her hands caught on a gear as she tried to steady herself on his chair and she made a small noise of discomfort. He lifted her the rest of the way off the chair and she wound herself around him tightly like a coil and he half carried her to the wall closest to the window. She made another small noise - this one certainly not of discomfort as she settled herself between him and the singed wall paper.

He pushed her skirts up over her entwined legs and smoothed his hand over one stocking encased thigh. Her other stocking had since fallen down and bunched at her ankle. For her part, she pulled at his belt buckle and heard rather than saw the bit of leather that held his favorite razor hit the floor with an echoing thud. She looked straight into his eyes - straight through him as was always her way - and he found that this time he could not turn away.

He held her slightly above him and she leaned down to kiss him again - a sweet, kind kiss - one that should have been reserved for someone other than what he was. But Mrs. Lovett was never one to follow convention.

He found his way inside her, then, and neither made a sound as they were held, suspended between the world in which they lived and the world they could make for themselves if given half a chance. If they were to be selfish and take it for themselves.

He leaned his face into her neck as he began to move within her. He couldn't quite bring himself to look into her face anymore. It was so different. Brilliant, suddenly, as the setting sun. It hurt his eyes. She held his head to her heart, accommodating as always to his own particular needs.

His breathing grew erratic and almost pained as their movement increased and they frantically grasped at each other. She bit her lip and his shoulder and make odd, almost musical gasping noises as her hand streaked across the windowpane.

After a time, he found he could no longer hold them up, so they sank together to the floor. He was exhausted and weak - ever negligent towards his bodily concerns - he was not used to the activities of the living. He sighed, hating himself, her, the world for it. But she held him still, even there on the hard dusty floor. Her arms wrapped around his chest and touched his hair. He listened to the sound of her breathing - slowing from her erratic desperate gasps. It was so different than the final, wheezing gasps of a dying man. To his horror, he realized that he actually enjoyed listening to her light, even breaths.

She touched his hand, then, so lightly that he would've missed it had he not been looking. He turned to face her expectantly, needing her to say something. But she simply looked back, her eyes uncertain. She was afraid again. He knew. And for once, Nellie Lovett was at a loss for words.

The air between them was heavy with meaning. It was the longest he had ever held her gaze without turning away - he found he couldn't turn away. He found he wanted to help lift the weight of that heavy meaningful air as she had constantly helped him.

"Well," he cleared his throat. His voice, he discovered with just a hint of anger, was hoarse with nerves. "That was...diverting."

She stared, blinked once, and then burst out laughing - or crying - he did not know. Probably both.

He continued to look at her, all seriousness, and she quieted immediately. He felt her hand move away from his then and she sat up, methodically putting her mass of hair back into place, or some semblance of it.

"Should be off - so much to do - got to find that bloody boy - have him put me things back in order after that romp he had around me kitchen chasing' that bloody cat." She stood, balancing on one foot, unsteady as she pulled her stocking back into place.

He stood up as well, not knowing quite what to do. She had tasks to be done, it seemed, enough for the both of them.

She was hopping on her left foot at this point in a vain attempt to right her other stocking when she teetered. He hesitated but rested a hand on her elbow to steady her.

She glanced up hurriedly. The fear in her eyes, he noted, was even more pronounced now than when he had the razor pressed against her throat. Why?

She righted herself and rushed to the door. Muttering as she went, more to herself than to him, "So much to be done Mr. Todd - so much -"

"Of course," he said after her. Then he added without thinking, "You always do so much. For me."

She stopped, her hand resting on the open door. She turned her head, so that he just saw the profile of her face outlined by the light leaking through the door above her shoulder. "I love you, you know, Benjamin. Always."

She had whispered the words as if speaking them any louder would make them even harder to say. She turned away again to leave and he wanted to let her - wanted to cry sacrilege towards his beloved wife and shout at her to get out before he threw her out himself.

He had always known of her ridiculous infatuation. Even before. But hearing her say the words made it real. Her admission made him stronger somehow. An odd feeling came upon him. It was something like the glowing rage he experienced every time he thought of the Judge's blood on his hands. But this was lighter. His lunges weren't constricting with rage. He felt, rather, that he could breathe easier with her there in the room.

It would not be good for her.

He may very well kill her one day. Almost certainly, in fact. He found he could not turn away from the dark. But he did not wish to turn from the light she offered him either, even if it was a temporary arrangement.

She had reached the top of the stairs by the time he had reached the doorway. He leaned his tired head against the door frame.

"Wait. Come back. Stay with me."

It was all she needed to hear. She would not deny him anything, even if it would mean the death or her. She came back slowly, touched his cheek. She knew.

"This won't last." He said it slowly, pronouncing each word carefully so that she would understand the meaning hidden between the words.

"You and I both know there's no such thing as forever, love."

This would kill them both. He knew this now as he leaned into the coolness of her palm. He knew it with perfect clarity and yet he did not care.

He supposed he was a very selfish man.


End file.
